By Andrew Mulenga
“At first it was my
cousin Martin Chanda – a Swiss-based Zambian artist -- who connected me to a
few artists in Lusaka and also dad encouraged me and showed me the Henry Tayali
gallery, but I think interacting with other artists at the Arts Academy Without
Walls (AAWW) is what is really helping me develop and find myself as an arts,”
says the Luanshya-born artist who has also been coached by painter, Caleb
Chisha as well as sculptors Nsofwa Bowa and Charles Chambata.
“I haven’t thrown my
qualifications away; art is keeping me occupied until something comes up in
aviation. But I won’t stop art. Zambia has no national airline so I’ve been
applying to foreign airlines and private companies locally. I even tried the
Zambia Air Force (ZAF) during the last recruitment but the names were not
released, I think they will be released after elections, still I don’t know if
my name will be there,” he explains. Ironically, he attended ZASTI on a
government bursary even though he is not able to find a job.
He works as both a painter and a sculptor choosing oil for his canvases and a variety of soft and hard woods for his carvings although he appears to be struggling for collectors or benefactors, in fact he was only able to make his first sale in March this year during The Foxdale Court Arts Day in Lusaka’s Roma suburb. The piece was one of his signature carvings of ornamental wooden shoes, shoes which are often the joke among his peers at the AAWW. Fortunately, he remains resilient and brushes the taunting off for what it really is, mockery.
While a close analysis
of Nsama’s work does indicate that he possesses a notable degree of proficiency
as a painter -- which manifests in his admirable colour usage and realistic
touch -- the work appears rather disoriented when it comes to subject matter.
The depiction of little children taking a bath is pretty much an exhausted
cliché that has perhaps been used too many times; similarly he is in the habit
of wrapping his subject matter in the texture of a brick wall giving the viewer
the feeling of peeping through a hole in the wall to gaze upon them. As much as
one may not want to encroach upon the artist’s style, something does not seem
to add up, is he doing this out of impulse or is he showing the viewer that he has
the ability to paint the exact likeness of a brick wall in several of his works
with considerable ease.
Also, his portraits of women with titles such as Proud African Lady and Happy Masai all seem too credulous, calling to mind airport art or the Sunday-market crafts genre popular among foreign tourists on a constrained budget. Similarly his sculptures also appear to be adrift, again despite the fact that he does exhibit competence in his preferred media of soft and hard woods. With titles such as True African Beauty and The Beauty within Me in Jacaranda and Rosewood respectively, the works exude a degree of shallowness. What is the artist really saying, what is he sharing with the viewer, is he conjuring seemingly redundant notions of ‘African beauty’ that existed in a time long before his own? If so, to what objective?
It is one thing for an artist
from Northern Zambia to create portraits inspired by women from the Masai of East Africa or the Dinka of Sudan, but did he really sit
down and ask himself why his work is being informed by these tribes from distant
lands, in countries where he has never set foot.
Of course it may be accepted and possibly even understood when an artist categorized as a self-taught artist is creating work on assumed impulse without adding any conjectural or indeed theoretical values to it. But again it raises questions towards the sincerity of the more experienced and exposed artists whom surround him and by extension every other Zambian artist. Do they interrogate their own work deep enough before they have it displayed? Even by critiquing it in their small cliques prior to hanging it on exhibition walls.
It is high time that Zambian artists stopped being dishonest with one another, if they see a questionable piece in a colleague’s studio space, they should ask why she or he chose a particular theme, what is its relevance within a particular social, political, environmental or cultural framework, Zambian or other.
Notwithstanding, Nsama is just one of many young artists with great promise that is trying to find a foothold within an art context that scarcely puts critical thinking or academic arts qualifications at the fore of practice. For now, what Nsama is providing is an honest, yet refreshing measure of creativity, optimistically the Zambian art scene is yet to see the best of him; surely he will find his way, hopefully before he returns to his professional career as an aircraft engineer.
When Gilbert Nsama
became a member of the Visual Arts Council of Zambia (VAC) in 2010, he was half
way through a three-year Aircraft Maintenance Engineering studies at the Zambia
Air Service Training Institute (ZASTI) in Lusaka.
 |
| Nsama is trained in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering but cannot find a job in aviation |
The ambitious young aircraft
engineer was convinced that being a member of VAC would be a nice by-the-way activity
when he is not busy fixing or maintaining aircraft, but six years down the
line, the 29-year-old has been unsuccessful in finding a job within the
aviation industry and has taken up the occupation of a full-time artist, a
prospect which is not without its own challenges.
 |
| Proud African Lady, 2016, oil on canvas, by Gilbert Nsama |
He works as both a painter and a sculptor choosing oil for his canvases and a variety of soft and hard woods for his carvings although he appears to be struggling for collectors or benefactors, in fact he was only able to make his first sale in March this year during The Foxdale Court Arts Day in Lusaka’s Roma suburb. The piece was one of his signature carvings of ornamental wooden shoes, shoes which are often the joke among his peers at the AAWW. Fortunately, he remains resilient and brushes the taunting off for what it really is, mockery.
 |
| African Beauty, 2016, jacaranda wood, by Gilbert Nsama |
Also, his portraits of women with titles such as Proud African Lady and Happy Masai all seem too credulous, calling to mind airport art or the Sunday-market crafts genre popular among foreign tourists on a constrained budget. Similarly his sculptures also appear to be adrift, again despite the fact that he does exhibit competence in his preferred media of soft and hard woods. With titles such as True African Beauty and The Beauty within Me in Jacaranda and Rosewood respectively, the works exude a degree of shallowness. What is the artist really saying, what is he sharing with the viewer, is he conjuring seemingly redundant notions of ‘African beauty’ that existed in a time long before his own? If so, to what objective?
 |
| Sunday Bathing, 2016, oil on canvas by Gilbert Nsama |
Of course it may be accepted and possibly even understood when an artist categorized as a self-taught artist is creating work on assumed impulse without adding any conjectural or indeed theoretical values to it. But again it raises questions towards the sincerity of the more experienced and exposed artists whom surround him and by extension every other Zambian artist. Do they interrogate their own work deep enough before they have it displayed? Even by critiquing it in their small cliques prior to hanging it on exhibition walls.
It is high time that Zambian artists stopped being dishonest with one another, if they see a questionable piece in a colleague’s studio space, they should ask why she or he chose a particular theme, what is its relevance within a particular social, political, environmental or cultural framework, Zambian or other.
Notwithstanding, Nsama is just one of many young artists with great promise that is trying to find a foothold within an art context that scarcely puts critical thinking or academic arts qualifications at the fore of practice. For now, what Nsama is providing is an honest, yet refreshing measure of creativity, optimistically the Zambian art scene is yet to see the best of him; surely he will find his way, hopefully before he returns to his professional career as an aircraft engineer.
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